With a glance up at the railing that ran the length of the gallery, the barkeep continued. "Our boy is so skilled that poets have written odes to his name, and our girl is a true find, hardly used at all. Was a servant in the great house in the city, so her manners are city-bred. Got herself turned away for refusing to do for free what she asks good coin for here on the paying side of the city towers. The governor's loss is your gain, good sir."

A servant in the governor's palace. That went a good way to explaining why they had stopped in this place. Llesho'd had enough experience with Shou's spies so that the realization never reached his face. When he followed the direction of the barkeep's gaze, however, he couldn't take his eyes away. A man and a woman well past the bloom of youth advertised by the barkeep perched on the railing. Except for the open robes thrown carelessly over their shoulders and the tall wooden shoes with high, thick heels on their feet, they were both naked.

Llesho had seen naked women working in the pearl beds-had seen Lling that way most of the days of their lives. Modesty had prevented him from thinking of them as anything but workmates, but this was completely different. The woman noticed that he was looking and nudged her partner in the ribs, sharing a joke at his expense. Holding his gaze, she opened her robe further and circled her hips in a lewd dance. Llesho felt the heat of her body in spite of the distance between them. He blushed. With a grin and a wink, her male companion leaned over and licked her belly, then blew him a kiss.

"For a modest fee, your help can sleep here on the floor once the tap patrons have gone home." .

Tearing his eyes away with an effort, Llesho found the innkeeper looking speculatively from Shou to Carina. Adar wrapped an arm protectively around her shoulder, and the man moved on to the three young Thebins in their cadet uniforms. He smirked before adding, "Though perhaps the gentleman prefers the young ones warm his bed."

The emperor played the part of his disguise. With a careless shrug, he flicked a glance over the pleasures displayed above them on the gallery. "Send both your people to me after our supper. Perhaps they can teach my pets a trick or two."

So, not just the woman, but the man as well were the emperor's spies. The barkeep seemed unaware of what covert negotiations he might be transacting, or with whom, but called the girl from the fire.

"My girl will air the room, good sir."

"Good. We'll want to retire early." For emphasis, Shou ran the tip of his thumb down the side of Llesho's face. They'd played this masquerade before, but this time Llesho felt a less accommodating reaction was called for. He shuddered, pulling his head away with just a touch of fear in his eyes.

"Good boy." The emperor smiled indulgently at Llesho. He approved the way Llesho had played the part.

The innkeeper said nothing at this exchange. Guynm Province kept to a strict religious code, but the poverty on the outskirts of the caravansary and this inn on the edges of the city proved that Durnhag had come to terms with its own corruption by moving it out of sight. He understood his patron's vices now, or so he believed.

Adar hadn't known the emperor very long, however, and didn't share the innkeeper's worldliness. He neither accepted nor trusted this disguise. Shoulders pulled back, his spine snapped to rigid attention, but he kept silent. Protective instinct warred with the caution any slave learned in order to survive. He wasn't a slave now, though, and Llesho held his breath, afraid that his brother would take no more from the emperor or the trickster god himself if it came to Llesho's safety. Adar had always been sensitive to the mood around him, however, and Llesho's tension seemed, paradoxically, to calm his brother. Or to put him on his guard, as Llesho wanted him to be.

Shou answered the healer's indignation, and his protective arm around Carina, with sophisticated boredom belying his modest Guynmer costume but not surprising the innkeeper, who had seen the same many times before. "I'm not a greedy host. You can have her if you want her.

"I ask only for your services as a healer to return my property to good working order when I am done with them," Shou added. "It's sometimes difficult not to break one's playthings."

Memory of his battlefield dead passed behind Shou's lidded gaze, and Llesho thought that some truths were worse than the masquerade. Dognut, however, seized the moment of Adar's stunned silence to rest a small hand on Lling's breast. He waggled his eyebrows and leered at her. "Pretty soldier. Want to see Dognut's blade?"

Lling gave him an icy smile and drew the long Thebin knife from the sheath at her hip. "Would you like to compare?" she asked, all teeth. When she wiped a speck of blood from the blade on a corner of his blouse, Dog-nut removed his hand. When Lling's knife disappeared into its sheath, the innkeeper gave the dwarf a wink.

Llesho still worried about Adar. When it came to his youngest brother, the healer-prince didn't trust Shou and might ruin whatever plan the emperor was hatching with a misguided attempt at a rescue. But slowly, soundlessly, Adar brought his reactions under control. Maybe he'd figured out there was more going on than he understood, or maybe he was biding his time. For the moment, at least, disaster was averted. Shou beamed at the healer as if he had performed a trick his master had despaired of teaching him. Llesho closed his eyes in silent prayer that the two men would not come to blows before they had deposited the emperor at the palace of the governor.

"Now that we have settled the arrangements, I am in the market for information." Shou turned his attention to the innkeeper. He'd get a complete report from his spies soon, but never gave up the opportunity to sound out the locals on conditions under their daily view.

"What did you want to know?" The innkeeper gave a doubtful look at the purse on the table.

Shou shrugged in the vague way of one who preferred not to speak his business aloud and emptied the purse onto the table. The innkeeper's eyes widened at the coins that spilled out. Small, but purest gold, the coins were worth ten times the man's earlier estimation and went far toward calming his suspicious nature.

"Strangers coming by in the past fortnight or so?" Shou prodded.

"Besides yourselves?" The innkeeper counted the value of secrets in the gold coins on the table and substituted another question. "Such as?"

"Dangers to a merchant on the road again with the sun?" Shou gave a wave of the hand, as if it went without saying, but the coin between his fingers ended up in the palm of the innkeeper.

"Too many Harn." He growled out the name as if he would hawk it up out of his throat. "And the Tashek have been sneaking around, looking over their shoulders at every creak of a floorboard."

"Trouble brewing." Shou didn't quite ask.

The innkeeper took a deep breath and reached back to rub at a tight spot at the base of his skull. "I reckon so," he admitted, and bit into the small gold coin to test its purity. Purer than the man could imagine, Llesho suspected, and straight from the stamping yards of the emperor who sat in disguise in his very inn.

"Safest to keep your head down and stay clear. There's going to be action between 'em, I'm betting, what with the dry season come on early, and Harn on the move." The innkeeper stepped away with a second coin and a nervous backward glance. Llesho found he had lost his appetite-just as well it wasn't a roasted fowl in front of him.

Stretching out with a catlike sprawl, Shou draped one arm across Llesho's shoulders and the other around Lling. "Jung An is a servant of her ladyship," he muttered into Llesho's ear with a tilt of his head to signal the woman, who moved back into the shadows of the gallery.

Llesho had figured the spy part on his own and wasn't surprised to find the hand of the mortal goddess of war stirring this pot. "Was it Lady SienMa's idea to send Bor-ka-mar away with his men and meet with your spies alone in this den of thieves?" he asked, keeping his words low so that their import didn't pass beyond their table. The resistance in his tone carried anyway.

Shou got him by the hair and shook him, a warning both real and acted out for their small but avid audience. "And how much attention would a squad of veteran troopers draw in a house like this one? Learn a lesson. It's safer to play a small man with large vices than a powerful man on a mission." He let go with a final shake and a reassurance given like a threat: "When I've taken Jung An's report, we can get out of here."

"If we haven't run out of time already."

Hmishi and Master Den should have joined them by now; the hairs on the back of Llesho's neck were standing up like the gods were passing at his back. Trouble.

Shou was dragging him from the bench, however, and didn't seem to hear. "We'll have that room now, and-"

The front door opened. They had time only to register the voice, "I heard there were Thebins-"

"Balar!" Adar rose from his place at the table, a broad grin on his face and fell on the newcomer with a crushing embrace that nearly cracked the three-stringed lute Balar carried on his back.

They had no more time for greetings. A shout from a table at the rear alerted them seconds before Harnish-men came pouring in through the back door. At the same time, raiders burst through the front. More had entered through the upstairs windows and they now joined the attack, rushing down the stairs and leaping from the gallery. Her ladyship's spies had disappeared from the railing, but blood dripped to the hall below giving evidence of their fate. Llesho drew his sword and fended off his attackers, trying to make his way to his brothers who stood unarmed at the center of the swirling battle.

Balar swung his three-stringed lute about him like a stave, sweeping the legs out from under a Harnish raider but breaking the neck of the instrument. He dropped the pieces and fell into a fighting stance that Llesho recognized. Master Den had taught him the same moves in Lord Chin-shi's gladiatorial compound, a lifetime ago it seemed. Master Jaks had shown him that he'd already known some of it from early childhood, but Balar, for all his gentleness, brought the grace of the dancer to the deadliness of one who had trained long in the Way of the Goddess.

The battle closed in around him then; Llesho lost sight of his brothers, lost count of his attackers, knew only the rise and fall of his weapons. He felt unstuck in time, fighting for his life in the Palace of the Sun while he did the same, again, on the road from Farshore, and again, in the market square of the imperial city. Fighting with all his skill, he found the place inside where action replaced thought and move followed move like instinct. He would not die, would not be taken prisoner in some grimy inn. But the Harnish raiders kept coming.

He was scarcely aware of the strange wailing cry that had joined the din around him, but he felt the strike of a hilt against the back of his head, and he was falling, falling, into a black pit that closed over his head like Pearl Bay.

PART TWO.

HONORING.

CHAPTER NINE.

flMISHI was screaming. From the raw sound of it, like sand caught in a mill wheel, he'd been at it for a long time. Llesho's head beat with each cry as if it were going to split his skull open.

"Lling?" he whispered, but even that slight movement jolted a searing stab of pain through his head-just a dream, except that it felt real. Somewhere, Hmishi was being tortured, and it was his fault, because he'd gotten away. But how? And where was he? He blinked a moment to clear his vision and wished he hadn't-the ground was surging like a restless ocean.

"Are you awake, Llesho?" Dognut's voice called from above his butt and Llesho realized that he was the one moving, not the ground, and that Shou's dwarf musician was the traitor among them.

Someone-it had to be an accomplice, because the dwarf couldn't have managed it on his own-had trussed him up and slung him over the back of a camel. He had his backside in the air, his face pressed into the flank of the animal, and a pair of elbows digging into his kidneys. When he tried to right himself, he discovered that his captors had tied his arms and legs to the pack strapping that wrapped under the animal's belly. When he opened his eyes, he saw camel. When he took a breath, he smelled camel. Which would have been bad enough without the camel bouncing him like a juggling ball.

Running. The camel was running. He'd seen camel races a few times as a child; he'd wanted to go right out and try it himself. Khri, his bodyguard, had put an end to his aspirations with a firm hand on the back of Llesho's court coat. His plans back then hadn't included traveling like a bedroll, but he wondered why camels moving at high speed had ever seemed like a good idea. This one was making him very, very sick, and he groaned before he could stifle the sound.

"He's awake!" The elbows shifted from his back and presently Llesho heard the sound of a reed flute, trills and whistles only, since it was impossible to play anything recognizable on a camel at full gallop.

Llesho pretended to be asleep while he tried to figure out where he was and who had taken him, and why. Dognut was having nothing of the pantomime, however.

"The question was a courtesy," he said, smacking Llesho soundly on the butt with the flute. "I know you're awake in there."

He stirred, wriggled, but there was no way of getting comfortable. "Where's Hmishi? What are you doing to him?" Pointless to ask. He knew it had been a dream, but maybe they were in the same camp, or part of the same force. He could tell them what they wanted to know and they would leave Hmishi alone.

"The boy isn't here. What do you remember?"

A fight. Someone hitting him on the head. If Hmishi wasn't here, where was he? If Dognut had known the answers, he wouldn't be asking questions.

Llesho didn't know anything, except, "I'm going to vomit."

Fortunately, Dognut was pulling on the reins of the beast they rode, and calling in Tashek to someone over his shoulder. So, the dwarf was in league with- A drover leaned over and grabbed the bridle of the skittish camel, bringing the beast to a halt. Llesho turned his head enough to see- "So you found us after all. Traitor!"

Harlol glared back at him, and they both tensed for action, though Llesho was in no position to move, let alone attack.

"Don't."

Goddess, what was he going to do now? That was his brother Balar's voice snapping at him from somewhere out of sight behind his right ear. Llesho didn't want to believe his own brother had sold him into captivity, but it was hard to ignore the fact that he was trussed up like a pig for the fire pit.

"How much did the magician pay you?"

"Nobody paid me anything." Balar shook his head and stooped low to cut the strap that looped under the camel's belly, securing Llesho's tied ankles to his bound wrists.

"Right. That's why I'm hanging upside down from a camel with my head ready to explode." Llesho wasn't surprised when his brother let him slide off in a heap. Traitor or not, Balar was really angry.

Hands planted on hips, his brother watched him pick his face up out of the sand- -definitely sand. Where were they, anyway? Llesho rolled over, which gave his brother some signal to go into full rant mode.

"A full complement of imperial militia traveled on private contracts with that caravan. If your damned Guyn-mer merchant had gone on with the rest, you would have been perfectly safe. We'd have had our happy homecoming at a decent inn, played a few songs, and we could have gotten you away from there before the Harn knew what we were doing. But he didn't. The fool left himself fully exposed in the most disreputable fringes of the city."

Shou wasn't, generally, a fool and you couldn't figure his motives based on his disguises. Their stop on the outskirts of Durnhag was about trouble in the city and her ladyship's spies, not about saving a few tael on lodgings, though the emperor wasn't here to support his claim. Neither was Adar or Hmishi or Lling, or Master Den. He had no intention of telling the brother who had kidnapped him any of that, however, which left him to listen as Balar lost his temper.

"The Uulgar had spies among the Harn in the caravan, of course, and they were looking for you."

"Who are the Uulgar?"

"The Harnishmen from the South. Your caravan had a group of Tinglut, Eastern clans. Not friends of the empire, but not under the magician's thumb either. The Uulgar, however, have a general order to take Thebin males of your age and let the magician sort you out."

"Is that where we are going now? To Master Markko?"

"Don't be more of an ass than you can help." Balar glared at him, as if Llesho were somehow responsible for the position he found himself in. Llesho glared right back.

"Fortunately for you, little brother, the Tashek have spies as well. Kagar got word to Harlol that you had stopped at that damned cesspit of an inn, and what was supposed to be a warm family reunion turned into a mad attempt at a rescue.

"We had to get you out of Durnhag, but you were fighting like a demon. Kagar tried to attract your attention and when that didn't work, ... he ... hit you over the head."

Now that he could actually see around him, Llesho noticed the Tashek groom lurking on the far side of the camel.

"He panicked," Balar continued, "hit you too hard, and maybe cracked your skull. It was the best we could manage under the circumstances. If the Harn hadn't divided their efforts between you and the other boy, we wouldn't have had a chance at a rescue."

If that was the truth, it didn't bode well for Hmishi. As bad as it was to be the object of Markko's search, how much worse to face his wrath as the wrong hostage? The memory of his friend screaming sent a fine tremor shivering through Llesho's body. Just a dream. But he knew it was more than that.

"By the time we pulled you out of there," Balar finished, "you were in no condition to ride, so we did the best we could."

Llesho cocked an eye at Dognut, who rode at his ease on a secure chair on the camel's back rather than tied down like a saddle pack.

"It seemed the easiest way to haul an unconscious body," the dwarf explained.

If Balar was lying, well, he wouldn't be the first prince in history to sell out his birthright, though from the look of him he'd made a poor bargain of it. Llesho probed for the lump on his head with his bound hands, winced when he found it.

"I'm not unconscious now," Llesho argued. "But I'm still tied up."

Balar had the grace to look embarrassed. Then he pulled his Thebin knife-a weapon which, Master Den had once told Llesho, a Thebin royal drew only to kill. So. Treason and murder it was. Llesho waited until his brother leaned over, blade poised, and then he kicked with all his might.

"Oof!" Balar didn't fly through the air as he should have, had Llesho been in better shape, but he did drop to his backside in the dust. And the kick knocked the knife out of his hand. Since his legs were still tied together, Llesho was no closer to escape, but it felt good to strike a blow in his own defense. Or it did until Kagar flung himself belly first over Llesho's legs and Harlol ground his shoulders into the sand beneath him. He gave up the struggle then. If he were going to be skewered, at least it wouldn't be on his brother's knife.

"I wish I had a stylus and paper." From his perch on top of the camel's pack, Dognut peered down at him with an avid grin. "I feel a comical song coming on."

"Traitor!" Llesho struggled to escape his captors.

Common words, like "betrayal," covered the actions of the Tashek drovers and Shou's double-crossing musician. His brother's actions went so much deeper that it almost didn't matter what they did to him next. Balar had already done the worst there was.

Brushing the dust from his robes, Balar cast about for his knife, but he put it away without making any further threats with it. Well out of Llesho's reach, he dropped into a Tashek squat, his elbows on his knees with his hands hanging loosely between them.

"No one is going to hurt you, Llesho."

Llesho snorted in disbelief. They'd already cracked his head or he would be giving them a decent fight, and his brother had just come after him with a knife.

Balar read the look he cast at the sheath on his belt. "I don't know what they've told you, but it's not magic. It's just a knife. I'm careful in a sparring match, but it cuts my beard-or a knot-just fine."

He knew that, and it reassured him more than it should have, that truth from his brother.

Balar gave him a lopsided smile. "You were in a battle fugue, fighting like a madman-or a god-"

They both understood the irony of that statement. All of the princes of Thebin shared in the divinity of the royal family. But as seventh son of the king, himself the seventh son of his own father-king, Llesho was, to his people, a god indeed.

"I'm sorry we had to hit you, but I can't apologize that you're here, with us, and not on your way to Harn." Balar drew in a deep breath and visibly calmed himself.

"Let him go." He reached out then, rested a hand on Llesho's knee, and gave a nod as a signal. "Kagar is going to cut your legs free so that we can get you on your horse."

Kagar drew his knife and slashed through the leather strap that held Llesho's ankles together. Oh. Not murder, then. Llesho had the humility to blush as his brother grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to his feet. At least, Llesho supposed he was standing. He couldn't feel anything below his knees and his legs bent under him like young bamboo. The two Tashek took his weight at shoulder and knee, and between them, they flipped him into his saddle.

"Harlol will tie you onto your saddle for your own protection," Balar explained in low tones that were meant to be soothing, but just made Llesho angrier. "Tomorrow, or the next day, when your head is a little clearer, you can ride without restraints. Until I'm sure you can manage without landing in the dirt, we'll do it baby-style."